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The nine paper broadsides were designed and created by Gary Young
they are 17" x 23", printed on archival paper - $100
proceeds from the sale of the Broadsides will benefit the Santa Cruz Artist Assistance Relief Fund (SCAARF)
Small Kindnesses &
Is Everyone OK?
Poetry by Danusha Lemeris
Artwork by Ric Ambrose
SMALL KINDNESSES
I've been thinking about the way, when you walk down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say "bless you"
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. "Don't die," we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don't want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. Io smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these bricf moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, "Here,
have my seat." "Go ahead- you first," "I like your hat."
Artwork by Ric Ambrose
SMALL KINDNESSES
I've been thinking about the way, when you walk down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say "bless you"
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. "Don't die," we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don't want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. Io smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these bricf moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, "Here,
have my seat." "Go ahead- you first," "I like your hat."
All We Can Do & Nocturne No. 4
Poetry by Morton Marcus
Artwork by Gale Antokal
ALL WE CAN DO
All we can do on this earth is step into the future with a sense of the many people behind us, the living and the dead, as if we carried our bodies like amphorae filled with sunbeams into each new day, continually reaching inside ourselves
to scatter golden butterflies over the land before us,
or to fling them against the night, not like tears, but like stars that will guide those who follow across the darkness.
Artwork by Gale Antokal
ALL WE CAN DO
All we can do on this earth is step into the future with a sense of the many people behind us, the living and the dead, as if we carried our bodies like amphorae filled with sunbeams into each new day, continually reaching inside ourselves
to scatter golden butterflies over the land before us,
or to fling them against the night, not like tears, but like stars that will guide those who follow across the darkness.
Passage
Poetry by Farnaz Fatemi
Artwork by Tamera Avery
PASSAGE
In translation, I am a succulent flower punctuating arid days. I am a girl without words listening for a familiar rattle in the seed pods. I am the book my cousins can’t hold in their hands.
Only in translation, beyond the names of oceans or latitudes of rice, I belong.
I am in this new place but haven’t noticed yet.
Here I spoon my envy in my cereal, can’t say who it is I’d rather be.
I know the Alborz mountains but pronounce them without the accent of absence, the way all my aunts do.
My permits are in order.
I come and go, carrying only their stories as baggage. I know nothing of exile.
I blink and pass through walls not meant for me.
زبان خواھر
Artwork by Tamera Avery
PASSAGE
In translation, I am a succulent flower punctuating arid days. I am a girl without words listening for a familiar rattle in the seed pods. I am the book my cousins can’t hold in their hands.
Only in translation, beyond the names of oceans or latitudes of rice, I belong.
I am in this new place but haven’t noticed yet.
Here I spoon my envy in my cereal, can’t say who it is I’d rather be.
I know the Alborz mountains but pronounce them without the accent of absence, the way all my aunts do.
My permits are in order.
I come and go, carrying only their stories as baggage. I know nothing of exile.
I blink and pass through walls not meant for me.
زبان خواھر
To Do
Poetry by David Sulllivan
Artwork by Harry Clewans
TO DO
Carry two buckets of salt down to the sea.
Fling them in.
Take actions that will leave no trace.
It’s not what you do that changes anything, it’s the doing.
Do it without a shout.
Do it under cover of night.
Watch granules sink and dissolve like fizzed stars.
Like all acts it should disappear into the elements it’s most like.
It should leave no mark.
Then head back home.
Fetch more salt.
Artwork by Harry Clewans
TO DO
Carry two buckets of salt down to the sea.
Fling them in.
Take actions that will leave no trace.
It’s not what you do that changes anything, it’s the doing.
Do it without a shout.
Do it under cover of night.
Watch granules sink and dissolve like fizzed stars.
Like all acts it should disappear into the elements it’s most like.
It should leave no mark.
Then head back home.
Fetch more salt.
Poem in the Sung Manner
Poetry by Joseph Stroud
Artwork by Robin McCloskey
POEM IN THE SUNG MANNER
In memory of Mort Marcus
Mort—remember how we used to tangle over poetry, how I held the Tang dynasty superior to your favorite, the Sung, how we’d sit in my little shed, drinking, swapping stories, the talk flowing between us, all those words like all those years we shared, our friendship going deeper as we grew older—old friend, no one knows how much I miss youyour quick laughter, your wit and candorI would give anything to be with you again. Now I sit alone in my shed thinking of you, reading Sung poems from a thousand years ago and come to the one by Mei Yao-ch’en the night he’s sharing the last of his wine with his old friend who will be leaving in the morning on a journey from which he will not return.
Artwork by Robin McCloskey
POEM IN THE SUNG MANNER
In memory of Mort Marcus
Mort—remember how we used to tangle over poetry, how I held the Tang dynasty superior to your favorite, the Sung, how we’d sit in my little shed, drinking, swapping stories, the talk flowing between us, all those words like all those years we shared, our friendship going deeper as we grew older—old friend, no one knows how much I miss youyour quick laughter, your wit and candorI would give anything to be with you again. Now I sit alone in my shed thinking of you, reading Sung poems from a thousand years ago and come to the one by Mei Yao-ch’en the night he’s sharing the last of his wine with his old friend who will be leaving in the morning on a journey from which he will not return.
Song of Pajaro
Poetry by Jeff Tagami
Artwork by Jay Mercado
SONG OF PAJARO
Pajaro the men thigh deep in mud who are cutting cauliflower the tractor they must depend to pull them out the catering truck selling hot coffee
Pajaro the children who clean the mud from their father’s boots They sleep They wake to the smell of cauliflower growing in fields that are not dreams fields that begin under their bedroom windows and end in a world they do not know from the mountains to the river from the river to the beach
Now Pajaro is tired It wants to sleep The packing sheds shut down for the night The trucks close their trailer doors and the Southern Pacific leaves town (having got what it wanted)
This Pajaro of my mother leaving work
who at this moment is crossing the bridge of no lights in her Buick Electra with wings like a huge bird crossing over the black river toward home where she will make the sign of the cross over the cooked rice in the name of the Lord and prepare for the table a steaming plate of cauliflower.
Artwork by Jay Mercado
SONG OF PAJARO
Pajaro the men thigh deep in mud who are cutting cauliflower the tractor they must depend to pull them out the catering truck selling hot coffee
Pajaro the children who clean the mud from their father’s boots They sleep They wake to the smell of cauliflower growing in fields that are not dreams fields that begin under their bedroom windows and end in a world they do not know from the mountains to the river from the river to the beach
Now Pajaro is tired It wants to sleep The packing sheds shut down for the night The trucks close their trailer doors and the Southern Pacific leaves town (having got what it wanted)
This Pajaro of my mother leaving work
who at this moment is crossing the bridge of no lights in her Buick Electra with wings like a huge bird crossing over the black river toward home where she will make the sign of the cross over the cooked rice in the name of the Lord and prepare for the table a steaming plate of cauliflower.
The Yellow Sweater
Poetry by Gary Young
Artwork by Rose Sellery
THE YELLOW SWEATER
When I was five, I knew God had made the world and everything in it. I knew God loved me, and I knew the dead were in heaven with God always. I had a sweater. I draped it on a fence, and when I turned to pick it up a minute later, it was gone. That was the first time I had lost anything I really loved. I walked in circles, too frightened to cry, searching for it until dark. I knew my sweater was not in heaven, but if it could disappear, just vanish without reason, then I could disappear, and God might lose me, no matter how good I was, no matter how much I was loved. The buttons on my sweater were translucent, a shimmering, pale opalescence. It was yellow.
Artwork by Rose Sellery
THE YELLOW SWEATER
When I was five, I knew God had made the world and everything in it. I knew God loved me, and I knew the dead were in heaven with God always. I had a sweater. I draped it on a fence, and when I turned to pick it up a minute later, it was gone. That was the first time I had lost anything I really loved. I walked in circles, too frightened to cry, searching for it until dark. I knew my sweater was not in heaven, but if it could disappear, just vanish without reason, then I could disappear, and God might lose me, no matter how good I was, no matter how much I was loved. The buttons on my sweater were translucent, a shimmering, pale opalescence. It was yellow.
Living Things
Poetry by Maggie Paul
Artwork by Marti Somers
LIVING THINGS
My daughter picks a flower from the garden a stalk of purple lupine to bring to school as evidence of something living.
Is it less alive once we’ve cut it? she asks.
Yes, I tell her. It is less alive once we’ve cut it. But for a short time, it will be the brightest thing in the room.
Artwork by Marti Somers
LIVING THINGS
My daughter picks a flower from the garden a stalk of purple lupine to bring to school as evidence of something living.
Is it less alive once we’ve cut it? she asks.
Yes, I tell her. It is less alive once we’ve cut it. But for a short time, it will be the brightest thing in the room.
Increase
Poetry by Deng Ming-Dao
Artwork by Adon Valenziano
INCREASE
Our bowl is the Dipper:
we find heaven between its stars. Each time we tilt that bowl, a river spills over the rim with a surge so strong no dike can stand against its flood. But where it is shallow, we squat and cup our hands to sip. The little that we take is more than enough to survive. When we harvest our crops we do not scrape the fields bare. We leave some plants to stand until they die in their own time, their pods close to bursting.
We hang them on a fence to dry before storing the seeds.
The next season, we sow again, then go back home at dusk, dipping our bowls into the stream.
Artwork by Adon Valenziano
INCREASE
Our bowl is the Dipper:
we find heaven between its stars. Each time we tilt that bowl, a river spills over the rim with a surge so strong no dike can stand against its flood. But where it is shallow, we squat and cup our hands to sip. The little that we take is more than enough to survive. When we harvest our crops we do not scrape the fields bare. We leave some plants to stand until they die in their own time, their pods close to bursting.
We hang them on a fence to dry before storing the seeds.
The next season, we sow again, then go back home at dusk, dipping our bowls into the stream.
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